What is the Sound of A One Hand Clapping?

What sound?
Is there necessary an answer?
Will there be an answer?
What if there is no answer?

Is it a trick question?
Or is it just a statement?
How can there be a sound of one hand clapping?
What kind of question is this?

The sound, whatever name I call it, whatever label I put into it, whatever countless questions I attest to it – will simply be exactly as what it is, irrelevant what meaning I put into it. But the meaning of the sound I put into it is not the actual sound that exist in its natural state – it is about the sound rather than the sound. My label has gone far beyond what is, into something that distort the reality of things, that brought concepts over what is true.

When I labelled you with a name, I already don’t see you at all. As the greeting in the movie Avatar goes: “I see you” – I am only seeing you what I perceived about you. I have not understood you, neither can I ever understand you, simply because my perception will always gets into my way colouring you with what you truly are. For that I have to seek forgiveness from you, for interpreting you. I also have to seek forgiveness from myself, for what I see in this world is not truly what it is, except a perception of what is.

When I see a tree, I don’t see a tree except my concepts about a tree. When I have a label of what a tree should be, any other tree that goes beyond my concept is not considered a tree. From a meaning of a tree, I branch further in adding concepts upon it – beautiful tree, thin tree, fat tree, short tree, tall tree, ugly tree, leaveless tree, bushy tree, frutiful tree, useless tree – I am going further and further away from what truly is, exactly as it is with all my meaning I put into the world. How then can I expect to see the truth except layers of fabrications and lies? So long as I don’t recognize them as lies and fabrications, I will be living a world of delusion, evolving around delusion, ending my life in delusion. What a life to live!

If I have a concept what should be right and wrong, I will always judge you according to my own concepts, not what you truly are. All my judgments are self-judgment and for that when I condemned you I am already condemning myself to limitation, to isolation and ignorance. If my life evolves around the polarity of right and wrong, I will be living a life of a tunnel vision, leaving behind the opportunity for wisdom to arise.

I will never be able to see beyond the form what the great masters are, in essence, telling me. I will only see them superficially, making a mockery of their wisdom and turning what is true into something disastrous, for me and the world. All forms are simply label in action. Devoid of true meaning of what is, I will continuously use it for my own means, for my own egoic trip until another label sets in for me to grasp on. So long as wisdom is not allowed to grow in me, getting myself into the way, I can never see any light at the end of the tunnel except darkness.

Until I take full responsibility of my own created delusion, the Truth is always hidden from me.

Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.

– Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas

So what is the sound of a one hand clapping? Any answer that I give will either lead me to Timbuktu, Salvation, Freedom or Emancipation, what ever label I put to it. All these labels doesn’t mean anything if I do not experience directly with clear insight into what it is. The direction of what I finally arrive at is solely my choice, albeit an unconscious choice, though in truth is a delusion of my own doing. So long as I don’t see the illusion of this game, I am in the game! Every form I held onto in my own space is all part of the game of delusion.

The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

2 Replies to “What is the Sound of A One Hand Clapping?”

I keep asking myself how do I go about adapting living in this illusion by constantly living in the truth…wouldn’t I be alienated? Then I tell myself, my work is to first learn how to constantly live in the truth and the illusion will fall in place for they are merely my creation in the first place

At this point of time, I am still learning to constantly remind myself of the truth and withdraw myself from the illusion or sometimes just watch it…it’s funny as sometimes it’s like watching a sitcom especially when watching so many drama queens justifying their roles in the drama but I find myself sucked into the drama when my ego is being challenged. It is only after the drama that I realize that I was actually defending my ego…a little too late but it’s almost a reflects like withdrawing one’s hand from a hot kettle…a reflects is faster that the mind.

I want to totally let go of my ego especially the one that is overlapped with my so called principles. How do I do this, for I have used my ego as a protection shield and letting go of it is like exposing myself to vulnerability but what am I resisting? My own fears, am I not?

I have to totally unlive and learn to live from stratch again. Learning to give up my principles is my biggest challenge…while they are illusions, I have learnt to respect myself based on those principles. The more I learn about the truth, the more I learn to laugh at myself, it’s like watch a child holding on to a smelling pillow and as the child grows, he’s aware that the pillow is old, dirty, ugly and smelling and yet there is still an urge to hold on to it. Isn’t life funny?

I remembered Pursah mentioned that it is necessary to keep reminding ourselves of the new information as our old habit is so deeply ingrained in our mind. One moment of forgefulness is enough to start the ego journey. Just one split moment!

It is a good practise to keep remembering that what I am experiencing is all a dream – this very fact brings me out of the drama, simply watching the whole melody play of drama. I was taking an early bus to Penang this morning and got agitated by the driver’s plan of stopping in Ipoh & B’worth instead of direct journey to Penang as promised. Then I remembered that what is outside is my unconscious interpetation. Wow what a time to reclaim my power! But strangely after taking full responsibility of my complaint and upset in a very impartial way, seeing it all as an illusion – I start manifesting what I really wanted – to arrive Penang by 12noon irrelevant where the bus driver is taking me. Guessed what? I arrived earlier than what I wanted! Conceptually it is impossible – but it happens. Wonderful. That is the power of seeing everything as my own creation.

So once I see everything as my own creation, I am able to create my dream – a conscious dream so long as I am not out of it yet.

Meeting Myself

This blog is about the mind story – my intimate relationship with the mind. And the stories evolve around my own spiritual growth which includes my own shortcomings, observations and understanding.

Interestingly it was recognizing arrogance that propels me to look at spirituality from a different light, beginning from the Buddha’s teaching to other faith, seeing profound similarities in them. Arrogance swings me from one end of polarity to the other end, humility. And again, only in recognizing both ends was I able to come to my own balance state, the middle path. Both ends have extreme interpretations of good and bad whereas the centre has its understanding of both. The recognition I am talking about is wisdom in working, found in each and everyone of us, when we allow.

And my journey is still evolving and refining, bringing myself back again and again, consistently, allowing wisdom to unfold in me, from extremity to the middle path of non-judgment and non-violence, seeing the world as my own creation and definition.

May you find yourself in these readings and come into your inner peace and freedom.

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Quantum physics defies what Newtonian physics is all about. At the molecular level, the entire game changes. In fact it is totally in opposition to what is.

The same goes with the mind. The world I perceived outwardly is not exactly what I thought it is - a different set of rules reign within.